Criminology Course Descriptions

Course schedules
Course requirements

CRIM 100 Criminology
This introductory course examines the multi-disciplinary science of law-making, law-breaking, and law-enforcing. It reviews theories and data predicting where, when, by whom and against whom crimes happen. It also addresses the prevention of different offense types by different kinds of offenders against different kinds of people. Police, courts, prisons, and other institutions are critically examined as both preventing and causing crime. This course meets the general distribution requirement.
Syllabus for Fall 2006 Semester

CRIM 200 Criminal Justice
This course examines the causes and consequences of the millions of decisions made annually by the legally empowered decision-makers of the criminal justice system. The course places students in the role of one decision-maker after another, emphasizing the decisions they would make with all the scientific research on these decisions at their disposal. Research on 15 different decision-makers is examined, from crime victims to police, prosecutors, jurors, judges, wardens, probation and parole officers. Using a medical model of evidence-based practice, the course asks students to consider how the results of criminal justice could more effectively reduce the sum of human misery.

CRIM 350 Quantitative Crime Analysis
Statistical techniques and quantitative reasoning are essentials tools for answering empirical questions about crime and justice. For example, it is impossible to properly understand the controversies surrounding the use of the death penalty in the United States  --- charges of racial discrimination, claims that executions deter crime, the use of DNA, and others --- without understanding how quantitative information is brought to bear. In this course, an introduction will be provided to proper analysis of quantitative information about crime and justice. Special emphasis will be placed on visualization methods so that procedures such as regression analysis can be approached as a graphical summary of the relationship between two or more variables.

CRIM 360 Crime and Human Development

CRIM 370 Biosocial Criminology
Is there a “natural-born killer”? What makes a successful psychopath? And is it morally wrong for us to punish those who are biologically-wired for a life of crime? This course argues that answers to these inscrutable questions will ultimately be found in an interdisciplinary perspective that examines the interface between the social, clinical, and neurosciences. We will explore new biosocial treatments for violence, and analyze the controversial neuroethical, legal, and philosophical issues surrounding neurocriminology. The course presents perspectives from fields of psychology, neurobiology, sociology, neurochemistry, anthropology, law, neuroanatomy, cinema, public health, neuroendocrinology, criminology, forensics, pediatrics, and psychiatry. Only by integrating knowledge from multiple domains will we fully understand, predict, and prevent future criminal behavior.

CRIM 380 Ecological Criminology

CRIM 410/ CRIM 610 Research Seminar in Restorative Justice and the Life Course
This seminar focuses on the ongoing data collection of Penn’s Jerry Lee Program of Randomized Controlled Trials in Restorative Justice, the largest program of field experiments in the history of criminology. Since 1995, this research program has randomly assigned over 3400 victims and offenders to either conventional justice or restorative conferences of victims, offenders and their families, in Canberra (Australia), London, Northumbria and Thames Valley (all in England). The offenders have all been willing to acknowledge their guilt to their victims (or the community), and to try to repair the harm they have caused. Key questions to be answered by the research program include the effects of restorative conferences on the future crime rates of offenders and victims, on the mental health and medical condition of both, and on the changes over time in these dimensions of the life course of both victims and offenders. Students will be the first data analysts to explore a new interview data set for some 150 victims and some 900 offenders.
Syllabus for Fall 2006 Semester

CRIM 411/ CRIM 611 Field Observations in Criminal Courts
The course will serve as an introduction both to qualitative research and to an understanding of the routine workings of the courts in Philadelphia.   After a brief discussion of the theoretical underpinnings and practical techniques of ethnography, students will undertake supervised field projects leading to the writing of 5000 words long, examined research reports about different aspects of the social organization of the courthouse and court room.
Syllabus for Fall 2006 Semester

CRIM 415/CRIM 615 Fatal Violence in the United States
The purpose of this course is to provide students with an understanding of patterns of fatal violence in the United States and population approaches to violence and violence prevention.  The course will focus on policies and regulations related to the manufacture and use of the primary mechanism by which the fatalities occur, that is, firearms, as well as the central aspects of the social context in which firearms exist and within which firearm policy is made.

CRIM 535 Quantitative Methods I
Statistical techniques and quantitative reasoning are essentials tools for answering empirical questions about crime and justice. For example, it is impossible to properly understand the controversies surrounding the use of the death penalty in the United States  --- charges of racial discrimination, claims that executions deter crime, the use of DNA, and others --- without understanding how quantitative information is brought to bear. In this course, an introduction will be provided to proper analysis of quantitative information about crime and justice. Special emphasis will be placed on visualization methods so that procedures such as regression analysis can be approached as a graphical summary of the relationship between two or more variables.

CRIM 600 Pro seminar in Criminology
This course explores the basic scope, mission and methods of the science of criminology. The course proceeds to cover the current state of theory, research, and accomplishments in both knowledge and policy about criminality and criminal events. Students will read widely and report to the seminar on their readings, as well as assessing key readings and central ideas for their potential guidance of future research. The course focuses primarily on criminology of criminal events, including law-making and law-breaking. The criminology of reactions to crime is covered in the second semester pro-seminar in criminal justice, CRIM 601.
Syllabus for Fall 2006 Semester

CRIM 601 Pro seminar in Criminal Justice and Crime Prevention
A wide-ranging introduction to theory and research on responses to crime under the rubric of criminal law. Theories of deterrence, procedural justice, reintegrative shaming, defiance and other interactions between legal sanctions and legal conduct will be examined in light of the most recent research. Issues of discrimination, disparity, and fairness in the operation of criminal law will be considered with evidence from around the world. Patterns, causes, and consequences of legal sanctioning patterns will be systematically documented, and major gaps in knowledge will be identified.
Syllabus for Spring 2007 Semester

CRIM 602 - Evidence-Based Sentencing
This course examines the application of social science research to the process of sentencing convicted criminals. The course begins by reviewing the varieties of sentencing systems, emphasizing the range of sentencing guidelines frameworks within the US and Common Law nations. It then describes how these principles work in practice, in the actions and perspectives of prosecution, defense counsel, pre-sentence investigations by probation services, and judicial rulings. The course then considers the research evidence for the relative effectiveness of different kinds of sentencing and rehabilitation programs, with emphasis on direct comparisons of prison versus community-based corrections. The concept of an "evidence-based sentence plan" is then developed, and each student is assigned the task of writing such a plan based on a particular combination of prior criminal record and current offense. Each student will present the plan in a mock courtroom, with direct examination by a defense counsel and cross-examination by a prosecutor.
Syllabus for Spring 2007 Semester

CRIM 603 - Research Methods/Crime Analysis Project
This course provides an overview of social science research methods employed by criminologists in public agencies, with an emphasis on diagnostic and analytic tools, experimental design and quasi-experimental evaluation methods. In lieu of a Masters thesis, M.S. student pursue a semester-long project, using crime analysis and research skills (along with tools such as crime mapping) to address a specific crime problem. Student projects culminate with an oral presentation before the class, as well as submission of a written product.
Syllabus for Spring 2007 Semester

CRIM 604 - Criminology in Practice Seminar
This weekly seminar explores how criminal justice professionals can bring research-based approaches into crime-related policy and practice. Current and former government policymakers and criminal justice system practitioners regularly visit the class as guest lecturers and to engage in discussion with students. (Click here to see a list of past speakers.) This is a "capstone" course spread across both semesters and taught by the M.S. Program Director.
Syllabus for Spring 2008 Semester

CRIM 634 - Evidence-Based Crime Prevention
This course examines the use of evidence in the practice of crime prevention. Uses include the diagnosis of crime patterns and problems, research on how to reduce crime, implementation of crime prevention policies, value-added estimates of policy effects, evaluation of cost-effectiveness, and revision of policies, all integrated into the DRIVER model of evidence-based practice. Primary emphasis is placed on scientific methods and results to date of field tests of the effects of policies intended to prevent crime. Policies are examined in nine field settings: communities, families, schools, labor markets, places, police departments, courts, incarceration, and community supervision. Central methodological issues include research designs and their execution, systematic reviews and meta-analysis, and internal and external validity of program effects.
Syllabus for Fall 2006 Semester

CRIM 650 Inductive Statistical Methods from Exploratory Data Analysis to Statistical Learning
Data analysis has always had a significant exploratory component. Often exploratory work is undertaken as a clandestine activity not to be discussed in polite company. But beginning with the work of John Tukey, Frederick Mosteller, and others, exploratory data analysis was explicitly recognized and given more structure. Recent theoretical advances in statistics and computer science coupled with dramatic increases in computer power have led to “muscle car” versions of exploratory data analysis carrying such labels as statistical learning or machine learning. In this course, a number of these new procedures will be considered: bagging, boosting, support vector machines, random forests and others. Some theory will be discussed, but much of the emphasis will be on practical applications with real data. 

CRIM 700 Research in Criminology
This second year doctoral course is a weekly discussion group designed to help students integrate their coursework from different disciplines around the unifying perspectives of criminology. It focuses on preparation for the doctoral comprehensive examination, detailed critiques of published and unpublished research reports, and colloquia by leading guest lecturers presenting new research results. Students preparing for dissertation research on the causes and prevention of crime will report on their developing research ideas.

CRIM 701 Research in Criminal Justice
This second year doctoral course is a weekly discussion group designed to help students integrate their coursework from different disciplines around the behavior and operation of criminal law systems. It focuses on preparation for the doctoral comprehensive examination, detailed critiques of published and unpublished research reports, and colloquia by leading guest lecturers presenting new research results. Students preparing for dissertation research on the behavior of criminal law will report on their developing research ideas.

DEMG 604 Methodology of Social Research

DEMG 609 Basic Demographic Methods
The course is designed to introduce students to basic concepts of demographic measurement and modeling used to study changes in population size and composition. The course covers basic measures of mortality, fertility and migration; life table construction; multiple decrement life tables; stable populations; population projections; and age patterns of vital events. Students will learn to apply demographic methods through a series of weekly problem sets.

LAW 503 - Criminal Law
This course examines the criminal law as a device for defining and controlling harmful behavior. Attention is given to the theoretical justifications for and the effectiveness of punishment, the foundations of culpability, the basic principles of criminal liability, and the definition of offenses and defenses.

LAW 696 - Constitutional Criminal Procedure
This course focuses upon constitutional law issues that arise during the investigation of a criminal case. Attention is given to Fourth Amendment limitations on police conduct; the scope of the exclusionary rule; the law of confessions, including Miranda v. Arizona and its progeny; lineups and other pre-trial identification procedures; the use of informants and secret agents; and the privilege against self-incrimination in the grand jury setting.

SOC 536-001 Quantitative Methods II
A course in applied linear modeling. Emphasis on the theory and practice of multiple regression and analysis of variance, with extensions to path analysis and other simultaneous equation methods. Some data manipulation will require the use of a statistical computer "package," STATA; but the greater emphasis of the course will be on conceptualization and the ability to manipulate these new ideas both with and without access to statistical software.

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